Science: Mammoth killers could have done it with stone

AN AMERICAN archaeologist has found a way of testing the effectiveness of the simple weapons and butchering tools used by early hunters in North America. Instead of mammoths which were their quarry, he has used elephants from Zimbabwe. The elephants have been culled because of overcrowding in the country's national parks.

George Frison of the University of Wyoming carried out his work at the Hwange National Park during the culling operations. He experimented on elephants that officials of the park had freshly killed. According to Frison, elephants are similar to mammoths in size, musculature and the thickness of their hide.

In his experiments, Frison used replica projectile points and cutting tools (American Antiquity, vol 54, p 766). He was able to show that Stone Age hunters could have inflicted crippling or lethal wounds on mammoths of all ages and of both sexes. The weapons the hunters used were stone points, ...

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